How many Syrian refugees should Australia take?

[David]

It's seemed apparent to me from the beginning that this was more of a group mugging exercise, with the even more unfortunate addition of systematic, opportunistic sexual assaults thrown into the bargain. Religious belief/cultural values may have played little to no role or might have been a factor. I don't want to be alarmist about this, but hundreds of women reporting sexual assault in one place in one night is pretty shocking, don't you think?

As for me "fearing being wrong", WTF? As you surely know, I come at this from the position of someone who has consistently and vigorously argued against demonisation of refugees and called for allowing in high numbers of refugees. I did not want this to be true; I hoped that it was a beat-up or that media reports were misleading. I've read reports now from a range of relatively trusted news sources and they all told more or less the same story, which is that something very unusual and awful happened on that New Year's Eve in Cologne.

I hope that more detailed analysis of the nature and extent of the crimes emerge, but in the meantime I'm going to work from the basic premise (and the same premise that I follow in every other case) that respected news outlets are presenting us with reasonably reliable facts here � and not try to explain it away, because that would be intellectually dishonest.

[Wokko]

Sexual assaults during the German Carnival this year have doubled.

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/02/06/reported-sex-assaults-more-than-double-at-cologne-carnival/

"refused to state the ethnic and national origin of the 190 people arrested at the carnival"

I don't know how anyone can blame the media for this, the media in Germany have made a systematic effort along with authorities to obfuscate the identity of the attackers, both on New Years Eve and now. The fact that the information got out anyway and had to be addressed doesn't make it some 'Right Wing' conspiracy, on the contrary, the anti-Immigration movement (which is neither left or right so cut that shit out), has had to fight like crazy to get any negative news about these 'refugees' out to the public. Facebook in Germany has been deleting negative comments about Refugees, if there's a conspiracy here it's not on the anti immigration side.

Pegida marches in the UK
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/02/06/pegida-uk-marches-in-complete-silence-through-birmingham/

Thousands march in Dresden
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/02/06/pictures-thousands-join-pegida-march-in-dresden/

The fact that 1000s of people are braving the social ostracism and attacks that follow those who don't want to accept the PC narrative is quite telling. This issue has crossed the 'extremist' boundary and is entering the mainstream. Ironically this has given rise to a reborn Nationalism in Europe, something almost unfathomable 20 years ago. The Progressive left has overextended itself and its narrative, time to turn this mass migration ship around or Europe could be burning again within our generation's lifetime.

[HAL]

Did rise to a reborn Nationalism in Europe something unfathomable 20 years ago keep it?

[David]

To everyone else it just looks like the radical right getting organised and gaining power, Wokko. Not sure where you get the idea that the anti-immigration/anti-Muslim lobby transcend the political spectrum. These people will gleefully conflate refugee violence with terrorism and hysterically warn about 'invasion' every chance they get; it's just part of the same old narrative for them. You won't have to look for very long to see the skinheads.

[Wokko]

The (non progressive) left are the ones who focus on losing jobs to migrants and over taxing of the welfare state. The left-right dichotomy is one of Statism and economics, the skinheads/racists/whatevers have their own beef and I'd hesitate to suggest they have any particular political affiliation at all.

Lets not get into where Nazis sit on the Left/Right scale because there's enough thread splits around here already

[Mugwump]

[Morrigu]

[pietillidie]

[Mugwump]

^ PTID perhaps i'd need to read your posts again, but my impression was that you were suggesting it was likely - based on your world cup experience - that native Germans were the ones doing the groping and sexual harassment, where i think it's pretty clear that these were mobs of the rootless young men who make up the bulk of the immigrant statistics. Whether it was done for sexual/misogynistic reasons or as a ruse for theft seems to me important, but secondary to the main issue : Young women should not be assaulted and thieved from, amd placed under conditions of great stress in their own cities because of the acts of a political elite who are surrounded by bodyguards and chauffeured limousines.

I can agree with you re economic mismanagement and the GFC. That is obviously true, though one can argue over the causes and consequences. But the idea that france or the UK do not raise enough taxes to manage a decent society when the government appropriates around 50% of GDP is ipso-facto untrue.

There probably is no society on earth which has ever had it better than we have it now, in Australia or the UK. Peace, security, universal health care, record longevity, vast access to information, free education to age 18 and subsidised to 22, relatively uncorrupt politics, freedom to say and think almost anything we please, and generally pleasant civic spaces. Lots of problems, mostly to do with low-level crime and disorder, asset inequality and sustainability of the model, ; but our political structures and economics are still the template for making a good society. Why would anyone want to imperil it with the destabilising effects of mass immigration, against the will of the people ?

[pietillidie]

^I was just cautioning on the definitions and the very particular context of Cologne on NYE - words such as "groped" can mean anything in drunk public festivals. Bodily contact for theft, bad enough in its own right, also warrants careful wording.

And bizarrely and inexplicably remove cops from the equation? The result won't look great with or without underclass peasants. Dortmund and Cologne were genuinely scary during the World Cup. In Dortmund, glass covered every inch of public walkway in a matter of hours when Germany played Poland. If there were not hundreds of arrests that night and ten times as many complaints, I'll be buggered.

If we wanted to make a "fair" speculation, if there is such a thing, we might guess several agendas have combined here: The local police arse covering genuinely bad policing; racists and racist opportunists overplaying the chance to sink the boot in; the government downplaying incidents and difficulties; vague wording being mischievously used by the media; immigrants being inappropriately incentivised and educated; web debaters grabbing whatever works, etc.

[pietillidie]

[Mugwump]

We may indeed "pay now, or we pay later". The question, however, is not only how much we pay and when, but what we buy with what we pay.

Defence of our borders against unlawful intrusion and effective internal security against enemies may be costly ; but it is the minimum that we should expect of our governments. Fortunately Australia, helped by geography, has been fairly resolute in that understanding.

In any rational world, sovereign nations must be responsible for their own social, economic and political health, and what happens to them is pretty much beyond our control. To subscribe to paying at all for things over which you have no control is, as every adult instinctively knows, foolish. To imagine otherwise is to undermine the principle of political adulthood and responsibility that is essential to effective governance and human progress.

All the rest - "coping with change", "resilience" and "instability is a feature" is merely descriptive rhetoric. It says nothing about the important questions - how you manage change and how you foster resilience. Fortunately the people know that you achieve no resilience by indiscriminately flooding your country with people who cannot speak your language, who cherish their own traditions above yours, and who demand public services now that they have not contributed toward in the past - they know that all this is a recipe for chaos and decline, not resilience.

I have no idea what "making asylum seekers an international matter" means, but if it means again surrendering control over your sovereignty to people who do not have your interests at heart, it would also be a very foolish, not to mention dangerous, thing to do. See Europe, which has more-or-less done just this.

Lastly, the budget surplus of Eur 13 billion which you seem to prize so highly should be set against the ~3 Trillion Eur in German government debt. 13 Billion surplus achieved this year via unsustainable trading arrangements in the Eurozone represents 0.4% of the total public debt in Germany ! Better than Australia or Britain, certainly, but a footnote, and not the economic power-lift that you seem to think it is.

[think positive]

[pietillidie]

^Whoa there. That's *not* careful language. David used the term "opportunistic", not "planned", so you're misusing his words.

No evidence aside from ad hoc milling and pretty obvious petty theft techniques the world over has been presented. Stick to the facts.

[think positive]

Huh?